For the Record: Oct. 6, 2023.
Bandcamp Friday is here again—but don't take it for granted: here are dozens of listings for new and upcoming releases.
For the Record rounds up details about new and pending recordings of interest to the new-music community: contemporary classical music and jazz, electronic and electroacoustic music, and idioms for which no clever genre name has been coined, on CD, vinyl LP, cassette, digital-only formats… you name it.
This list of release dates is culled from press releases, Amazon, Bandcamp, and other internet stores and sources, social-media posts, and online resources such as Discogs. Dates cited typically correspond to initial U.S. release, and are subject to change. (Links to Amazon, used when all else fails, do not imply endorsement.)
These listings are not comprehensive—nor could they be! To submit a forthcoming recording for consideration, email information to nightafternight@icloud.com.
All opinions expressed herein are solely my own, and do not express the views of any employer.
Bandcamp Friday, if you want it.
This week’s Friday new releases newsletter is a brief one for reasons beyond my control, but it’s not one I felt I could skip, given a confluence of events that’s leading some observers to suspect this might be the last Bandcamp Friday ever.
For some Bandcamp employees, it would seem that’s probably a guarantee.
The bad feelings prompted by Epic Games selling Bandcamp to Songtradr continue.
You don’t have to dig around much on Reddit to find seemingly well-informed speculation in the gaming community suggesting (or really stating outright) that Epic never wanted Bandcamp in the first place, but bought it either to prove it’s okay to charge a 15% margin on sales, or to bolster a fight against Apple and/or Google concerning sales restrictions. Now, Epic has hastily offloaded Bandcamp to a new owner ostensibly more connected to music – and purportedly commited to the ethical standards upon which Bandcamp ostensibly was founded.
Obviously, we’re all bracing for change—and most of us seem to be anticipating change for the worse, because that’s what the intersection of tech and finance has taught us over and over and over again. But we can’t lose sight of the many, many artists whose livelihoods are bolstered by Bandcamp sales, which is a big part of why they flood the zone however they can for every Bandcamp Friday sale.
Importantly, even as Bandcamp staffers are fighting for their livelihoods – with their petition for Songtradr to retain all employees during contract negotiations with Bandcamp’s staff union now within 500 signatures of reaching its goal – they’re still encouraging the site’s customers to carry on supporting artists.
That’s just the kind of idealists and heroes they are.
Possibly you’re being very frugal about purchases during these precarious days. I know I am. My colleague George Grella addresses exactly that point in his own Bandcamp Friday note this week:
“The site is already a place where listeners can put cash almost directly into an artist’s pocket—that’s always the first and last thing I think about when I carefully weight choices and budgets—and the monthly events are the ideal moment, because every penny you spend goes to them, the site waiving their fee.”
Support artists, if you’re able. As ever, there’s a lot worth noticing this week: rich, transporting new releases by Jessica Pavone, Cassia Streb, Nathan Davis, and Brad Rose… a joyful guitar-hero flex from Elliott Sharp… a landmark document from George Lewis… pre-orders for excellent forthcoming projects by Lea Bertucci and Peter Evans… and a jaw-dropping archival recording by Derek Bailey and Paul Motian.
Support Bandcamp employees if you can, too.
New this week.
Gordon Beeferman Organ Trio - Second Being (Zoar)
Tom Bickley - Jepson Prairie (Other Minds)
Peter Broderick & Ensemble 0 - Give It to the Sky: Arthur Russell's Tower of Meaning Expanded (Erased Tapes)
Suzanne Ciani & Jonathan Fitoussi - Golden Apples of the Sun (Transversales Disques)
Greg Davis - The Tavern (12/07/2005) (self-released)
Nathan Davis - Neutral Buoyant (Infrequent Seams)
Mario Diaz de Leon - Spark and Earth (Denovali)
Eve Egoyan + Mauricio Pauly - Hopeful Monster (No Hay Discos)
Peter Gena - Beethoven in Soho and Other Works (New World)
Susie Ibarra - Procession Along the Aciga Tree - Susie Ibarra, Prism Quartet (XAS)
Linda Jankowska & Katherine Young - boundarymind (Carrier)
Roland Kayn - Superficies (Reiger-records-reeks; recorded 2005)
Thomas Larcher - The Living Mountain - performances by Sarah Aristidou, Alisa Weilerstein, Aaron Pilsan, Luka Juhart, Andrè Schuen, Daniel Heide, and Münchner Kammerorchester/Clemens Schuldt (ECM New Series)
Jeff Lederer - Balls of Simplicity: Notated Works 1979–2021 - Morningside Tone Collective (Little (i) Music)
Jeff Lederer with Mary LaRose - Schoenberg on the Beach (Little (i) Music)
George Lewis - Afterword: An Opera in Two Acts - Joelle Lamarre, Gwendolyn Brown, Julian Terrell Otis, International Contemporary Ensemble/David Fulmer (New Focus)
Jordan Martins - Fogery Nagles (Astral Spirits)
Rob Mazurek - Music for Piano and Modular Synthesizer (Ansible Editions)
Allison Miller - Rivers in Our Veins (Royal Potato Family)
Nickolas Mohanna - Double Pendulum (Run/Off Editions)
Jessica Pavone - Clamor (Out of Your Head)
Ethan Philion - Gnosis (Sunnyside)
Rick Reed - The Symmetry of Telemetry (Elevator Bath)
Samuel Reinhard - Two Pianos and String Trio (Präsens Editionen)
Brad E. Rose - I’m Scared of Dying (Room40)
Heikki Ruokangas - Karu (Orbit577)
Elliott Sharp - The Collapsed Wave (Zoar)
Cassia Streb - Marginal Habitats (Harmonic Ooze)
Taku Sugimoto - Three Improvisations (self-released)
Luis Tabuenca - Naturstudium (Mode)
Daniel Villarreal - Lados B (International Anthem)
Mark Wastell - Stairwell (Confront; new limited-edition dubplate series)
Upcoming releases.
October 8
Tani Tabbal Quartet - Intentional (Mahakala Music)
October 15
Andrew Tasselmyer - diary #1 (Sonic Dialogue)
October 22
Hannes Lingens - PLAY (Hitorri)
Rahma Quartet - Mercy is called down by Mercy to the last (Meenna)
Miki Yui - Live at Ftarri (Ftarri)
October 23
Bill Seaman/Tim Diagram/Stephen Spera - The World Was Turning Before (laaps)
October 31
The Gate (Dan Peck, Tom Blancarte, Brian Osborne) - Scum (Tubapede)
Uncivilized - “Blue Monk” (feat. Tristan Cooley) (Ignore Heroes)
November 1
Peter Evans Being & Becoming - Ars Memoria (More Is More)
November 3
Chris Opperman - Still Waters - compositions by Chris Opperman, Ann Southam, Phillip Schroeder, Tyler Kline, Kimberly R. Osberg, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (self-released)
November 10
David Lang - the little match girl passion - Molly Netter, Kate Maroney, Gene Stenger, Dashon Burton, Trio Mediaeval (Cantaloupe Music)
Lucy Railton - Corner Dancer (Modern Love)
Asha Sheshadri - Whiplash (Recital)
November 17
Derek Bailey & Paul Motian - Duo in Concert (Frozen Reeds; recorded 1900-91)
Samuel Goff/Camila Nebbia/Patrick Shiroishi - Diminished Borders (Cacophonous Revival)
November 24
Uncivilized - 5 by Monk by Csatari (Ignore Heroes)
December 1
Lea Bertucci - Of Shadow and Substance (Cibachrome Editions)
Cut the Sky (Alex Roth, Wacław Zimpel, Hubert Zemler) - Esz Kodesz (Aion)
Charlemagne Palestine - DINGGGDONGGGDINGGGzzzzzzz!!!!!!! (Blank Forms)
Yan Jun - contradictions (plays lu xun, žižek, baudrillard and beckett) (Reading Group)
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.